Thursday, June 12, 2008

Inertial Dampeners Essential

After an inspiring conversation with a colleague about our favorite game, Privateer, I was motivated to create a space ship simulation, controlled via 3 axis joystick.

I modeled the ship so it has two thrusters at the rear, which can pivot independently. I then apply separate forces to each thruster, which allows the ship to roll, and change pitch.

Unfortunately, the ship is extremely difficult to control. It would spin wildly, even with small amounts of thruster angle. The simulation only became workable when I added large amounts of torque dampening, and limited the thruster pivots to -+5 degrees.